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What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?
I have a few game-time strategies to increase the comfort(s) in my life. My strategies revolve around a daily schedule that I have built up over the course of this past year. My daily schedule is not rigid, however, I am quite firm on staying as close to it as possible. It also depends on how my little one is behaving on any given day.Mine & Jian‘s best friends have a set schedule with time frames written out clearly on a dry erase board they keep in their living room. They are extremely diligent on staying true to their strict schedule, except on weekends.
When I am taking care of my little one by myself (without the extra help from my mom & Jian), I try to stick to my daily routine as much as possible. I don’t give myself strict time frames, but I at least have a general timeline of when to accomplish target tasks.
First thing early in the morning, I head to the kitchen to grab my kid a cup of milk. I pour myself a cup of leftover coffee (lately I have been really into drinking iced coffee). My little one & I will lounge about in bed for a little bit. She will play toddler games on my iPad while I watch the morning news on TV. She drinks her morning milk, & I drink my coffee. This is one part of our daily routine that is definitely a luxury. It starts our day on a happy, positive note.
After breakfast, I clean up the kitchen. This is when I will play some music on Spotify or play a movie to run in the background while I am washing dishes & such. I will also take some time to top up my coffee cup, check my Instagram feed, or watch a few YouTube shorts. This is my equivalent of a 15-minute smoke break in a corporate office. However, at least one to two times per week, I will use this in-between breakfast & lunch time to wash my hair. I cannot wash it at night when I shower because it takes too long.
During my little one’s nap time, which I call “quiet time”, is where the fun starts for me because it is now my do-whatever-I-want time, or more accurately, the do-the-things-she-won’t-let-me-do-while-she’s-awake time. I will use this time to grab my 2nd full cup of coffee for the day. Also, right now, I am currently in the process of building 4 toy brick sets from CaDA Bricks. I use my little one’s nap time to work on my brick sets. If she were awake, she would want to grab all of the pieces & scatter them all over the house. Just a few minutes before the little one wakes up from her nap, I will carefully put away my bricks.
Carving out this 2-hour window each day to work on my brick sets or read up on trashy celebrity gossip is one of my day’s comforts. It allows me some real time to relax & not have to think about chores or daily work. This time when my little one is extremely precious to me & I make sure I set aside an allotted amount of time each day to do something I enjoy, like writing this blog. That pretty much sums it all up. There’s not much strategy other than setting aside some uninterrupted time to do things I need to or want to do. That’s all. Until the next one, cheers!
What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
You know what? This is probably one of the more harder questions I have ever answered in my life. How can you choose one dish or one meal to be the “most delicious”? You cannot. There is no such thing as “the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten”. However, I will say that there have been many “most delicious food experiences” I’ve ever had. Allow me to explain below in the best way I know how…by making a list.
- level 4 spicy 豚骨ラーメン (tonkotsu ramen) from 一蘭 (Ichiran) ramen chain.
- I’ve been to Tokyo, Taipei, & Hong Kong (IMO…Tokyo locations are the absolute best)
- freshly cooked, piping hot sausage on a stick at the Shilin Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan
- double bowl of 红烧牛肉面 (braised beef noodle soup) at a 50+ year old noodle shop with my closest friends in Taipei, Taiwan (after a wedding)
- sushi soooo fresh, the fish head is still moving, at my family’s favorite restaurant in Yokohama, Japan (just outside of the train station)
- double bowl of 雪菜肉丝面 (snow cabbage beef noodle soup) with my maternal grandmother in Shanghai, China
- homemade/handmade hamburger patties made by my mom with 2 slices of melted cheddar cheese
- first time taste of lobster, 2-pound lobster on the wharf at Abalonetti’s in Monterey, California with my parents
- 9-course steamed chicken dinner at Toriyoshi restaurant with friends in Tokyo, Japan
- ice cream & corn flake parfait dessert at Toriyoshi restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
- first time taste of mille crêpe cake from Café La Voie in Tokyo, Japan
- Jian’s homemade version of a French cassoulet
- Liberty Farms™ BBQ duck at The Progress restaurant in San Francisco, California
- Liberty Farms™ smoked duck at The Morris restaurant in San Francisco, California
- buckwheat donuts at The Morris restaurant in San Francisco, California
- deluxe seafood tower at Wright Brothers restaurant in London, England
- roast beef sandwich on sliced sourdough bread with Swiss cheese, red onions, mixed greens & garlic aioli spread from my local grocery store.
I had to make a list of some of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. I couldn’t choose only one thing. Plus, it’s hard to think about all the things one has eaten in their entire lives & choose only one specific thing to be the absolute favorite or most delicious. How does a person choose only one? More importantly, how could a person go back through the memory catalog of their life & try to remember all of the foods they have consumed in their lifetime, then decide which dish reigns supreme (not an Iron Chef pun, I swear)? I don’t want to think that hard or make some ridiculously absurd justification about one frou-frou meal I had at some fancy-schmancy restaurant somewhere exotic. So I made a list.
My food preferences are all over the place, but that’s okay. I am not really an adventurous eater, but I am still willing to try foreign foods. Jian is pushing me to try new foods, or foods I have refused to eat in the past, when we travel again to Japan later this year. We shall see. Until the next meal, cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?
This is as straightforward of an answer I can give you: jeans & a sweatshirt. I live in an area within California where I can pretty much wear long pants & sweatshirts/sweaters all year round. There is one small stretch at the end of summer, just before fall, where it gets almost unbearably hot. However, pretty much throughout the other parts of the year, I can wear long pants & long sleeve shirts.
My go-to outfit pretty much every day is a pair of skinny jeans & either a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, or a lightweight sweater. Since I don’t have to get dressed up to go to a corporate office, or meet anybody in a formal setting, I don’t have much need to wear business casual clothing. I have some formalwear, a few basic pieces that I can throw on for special occasions, but most of my everyday wardrobe since becoming a parent, has been taken over by comfort-wear.
I have a small selection of skinny jeans in various shades of blue that I rotate through weekly. I don’t follow the major fashion trends, & I know skinny jeans are not in style right now, but I don’t care. I’m fairly short in stature, so I feel like wearing any other style of jeans (i.e. boyfriend fit, relaxed fit, boot leg, etc.) would just make me look shorter, wider in frame, & frumpy. I am a skinny or straight leg jeans lady for life. Also, being a creature of habit, I always stay within the blue hue range. I am not comfortable venturing out to other colors in jeans.
Because of the area I live in, the weather is always temperate, so I don’t usually have to put away my autumn/winter clothes or rotate my wardrobe based on the seasons. I have a dedicated shelf in my closet just for my regular-use sweaters & sweatshirts. I rotate through these items weekly. If you were to ask me, I would say that I prefer sweatshirts over sweaters, but that’s only because sweatshirts are easy to throw in to the washing machine, whereas sweaters need to be specialty hand washed or dry cleaned. I’m not a particularly messy or sloppy person, buuuttt…I can be rough & careless at times when I do things, & that can create irreversible messes on my clothes. So, casual sweatshirts are the way to go! They keep me warm, hides my body image issues, & can withstand my day-to-day activities.
So there you have it. I’m a sweatshirt & jeans kind of lady. I don’t have to take too much time in the mornings to choose an outfit. I can grab & go, & with a little child that takes for-ev-er to get ready in the mornings, it’s always easiest to have something simple to throw on & not have to think too much about it. Of course, I wouldn’t be my usual OCD self if I didn’t add on that my everyday clothing must be clean & wrinkle-free. I may be a basic dresser, but I will never compromise on cleanliness & neatness/tidiness. That is all. Cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
Rabbits & Foxes 
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